Recent Posts

3601

Living Room / Re: DonationCoder Poker Tournament is Scheduled!

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 28, 2012, 09:19 PM »

It should be said that while pokerstars is a legit site, there is a high chance you will receive gambling spam at the email you sign up with, so use an email address that you don't mind getting spam at (and if you don't have such an email address, time to get one).

-mouser (July 14, 2012, 03:24 AM)

Slightly off topic, Mouser is right, though officially "opt-in" email is NOT spam because you have requested a relationship with the company involved. So I definitely recommend this practice, and I have had one for years because everyone from online games to Radio Shack wants to pummel you with the mail.

3602

Adventures of Baby Cody / Re: United States of America visit 2

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 28, 2012, 09:10 PM »

And now it's Summer!

I am going through Baby Cody withdrawal.

3603

Living Room / Re: DOTCOM saga - updates

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 28, 2012, 09:05 PM »

Update via Slashdot:

-IainB (July 28, 2012, 12:55 PM)

Umm... Guilty until proven innocent?

I have a serious allergy to this stuff. Causes me to break out in fits of logic, reason, and obscenity.

-Renegade (July 28, 2012, 01:23 PM)

Very close to "Guilty, regardless of innocence". And down THAT road come some VERY scary things.

3604

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 27, 2012, 06:06 AM »

Reminds me of my old days with a penguin book of Englishman Irishman Scotsman jokes.

3605

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 26, 2012, 03:38 AM »

Well okay this one is SafeForWork but it's scarily Insightful humor and not Silly, but I'll stick it here.

Cracked is becoming a national treasure, surpassing even the best old Mad Magazine stuff.

http://www.cracked.c...secret-identity.html

3606

Living Room / Re: Cool television show (lot of it on youtube): Penn and Teller Fool Us

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 23, 2012, 02:29 PM »

I love the inside jokes they make about Teller's Non-Speaking. "Teller, if I call you on the phone... oh wait..." or something. "Penn, can you tell me what card you chose - Teller can you ... uh... anyone have a pencil for Teller?"  

If anything, Teller is apparently the better magician of the two, I caught up with these youtube clips a couple months ago, an Penn had a bunch of times "You fooled me, but in this show you have to fool BOTH of us... " etc.

And Jonathan Ross is just fun.

3607

General Software Discussion / Re: Why Windows 8 Made Me Sell Microsoft (MSFT)

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 23, 2012, 02:21 PM »

I guess I'm lost from the business perspective. My knowledge of this area is kinda fuzzy but here goes:

If you have a stock that is *under-valued* then you keep/buy more because in the "perfect info world" you'll make money when the price catches up to the value.

Selling a stock is what you do when you think it is *over-valued* before the rest of the stock world figures out whatever perspective you're looking at.

What's funny is this is like the opposite of insider trading. With a little exaggeration, Window 8 Metro vs the iPad is the Meta-Game. Everyone else is doing Not-Windows-Not-iPad things. I haven't seen this much hype since the old Longhorn days. So if the Anti-Metro crowd is busy sending warning signs, this is feeling like a card game with some BIG cards not yet played. It feels like MS is trying to draw the pieces into a poker Straight, which would either win the hand or be a giant pile of Nothing.

3608

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 23, 2012, 06:25 AM »

So is that 8 holes per screw or 1 hole per 8 screws?

-Renegade (June 24, 2012, 10:36 AM)

Heh - and with THAT setup I can not longer resist: Guess the Celebrity!

From Wikipedia:
"He earned a bachelor's degree in education and theatre and a master's degree in special education from Queens College in New York. He taught special-education classes in the New York City area and was a substitute teacher for regular classes."

-TaoPhoenix (June 25, 2012, 12:31 PM)

Kotter~!

Welcome back~!

-Renegade (June 25, 2012, 01:38 PM)

Incorrect answer. The correct answer is :

This fellow:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Jeremy

3609

Site/Forum Features / Re: About the Basement (Soap Box) Section

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 23, 2012, 06:20 AM »

Our Soap Box (what happens if I defy the name change, in the section that's supposed to have few(er) rules?)  was/is still fairly civil. It's not *-chan. Soap Boxes still make me think of Mark Twain, and maybe Jonathan Edwards. I don't expect to find GNAA troll posts there. In a Cesspool I would.

3610

Living Room / Re: Internet freedoms restrained - SOPA/PIPA/OPEN/ACTA/CETA/PrECISE-related updates

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 21, 2012, 12:14 PM »

I wish I had tons of money to throw at silly projects!

We can practically make a satire app for all this stuff!

"Big Brother Welcomes You!

Here is a list of explicit and/or implied rights you used to have and thought you still did. Click on a right to find out which bill under proposal takes it away!"

3611

Site/Forum Features / Re: About the Basement (Soap Box) Section

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 21, 2012, 12:08 PM »

Hmm. I'm mostly okay with avoiding religion, but "politics" is becoming harder to avoid, because it's starting to cross over into requiring the educational services of techies (which is what you are) or techie-wannabes (me!) to form the coalitions necessary to stop the rabid new Big Brother pushes. Some of the best posts I've yet seen on these topics are here, starting to edge out Slashdot, my prior go-to zone.

3612

Living Room / Re: Cute jokes' thread

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 14, 2012, 12:25 PM »

From an actual SF book collection:

(Author forgotten)

Time Ended. Yesterday.

3613

Living Room / Re: What went wrong at Digg: publishers, PR hacks and power users ruled the roost

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 14, 2012, 12:20 PM »

Wow Iain, that post is incredible.

-TaoPhoenix (July 14, 2012, 08:03 AM)

Hahaha - does that mean you don't believe it?    

-IainB (July 14, 2012, 10:53 AM)

Of course I believe it - it and the followup were at a high level, higher than most posts I've seen anywhere. Looks like you took some management training either at work or elsewhere.

It's especially funny if you look at the thread starter pic. 

3614

Living Room / Re: What went wrong at Digg: publishers, PR hacks and power users ruled the roost

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 14, 2012, 08:03 AM »

Wow Iain, that post is incredible.

3615

Living Room / Re: What will be your next computer?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 14, 2012, 07:54 AM »

I have skipped vista and win7 but I think my new PC will be a win8.

-mouser (July 13, 2012, 05:22 PM)

The official DC review of Metro will be something to behold!

3616

Living Room / Re: What is the better synonym to antonym to the term "Human"?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 14, 2012, 07:53 AM »

So where does "Corporation" fit in? Simultaneously a Person and Not-Human...

3617

Living Room / Re: First photo on the Web

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 14, 2012, 07:51 AM »

That image is clearly shopped. I can tell by some of the pixels. Also because I have seen many shops in my time.

-Deozaan (July 13, 2012, 11:18 PM)

From the department of "what are you saying?". The article gleefully announces that "the first photo on the web was a photoshop disaster". It wasn't even a technology test, it was in fact the world's first ad photo on the web.

3618

General Software Discussion / Re: how to catch streaming video?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 14, 2012, 07:14 AM »

The match is being streamed and I would like to keep the video. .

-Curt (July 13, 2012, 07:04 AM)

Cue the **AA!

3619

Living Room / Re: Petition - This Week We Kill ACTA - Or Get Locked Down In Monopolies For Decades

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 13, 2012, 05:56 AM »

I agree that CETA needs to be watched.

Meanwhile there's a new one:
IPAA
http://motherboard.v...these-copyright-laws

http://www.publickno...e.org/ip-attache-act

http://techdailydose...cry-foul-over-ip.php

3620

Living Room / Re: DonationCoder Poker Tournament is Scheduled!

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 08, 2012, 12:11 PM »

I'm scared of Cody's Poker Face! 

3621

General Software Discussion / Re: cut out middle verse and still keep pace

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 08, 2012, 10:20 AM »

I've chopped some stuff with Audacity before. I recommend that you don't try to chop any of the actual words - cut a little earlier in one of the instrumental parts. I agree when the full song mixing is going on it's hard to chop, so when I do this stuff I look for one of those quieter set-up spots after one of the bridges or such before it loops back to the verse.

It's hard to get it truly perfect, but I find I do okay if I get close enough that it's only a microsecond blip and then I forget about it.

3622

General Software Discussion / Re: Used Software Can Be Sold, Says EU Court of Justice

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 07, 2012, 04:39 AM »

I was just reading the following yesterday:

  Misinterpreting Copyright - A Series of Errors

I haven't verified the points made in the piece, but it has sparked my interest to investigate further.

As I understand it, the piece has mostly to do with the U.S. -- don't have any clue about other countries.

-ewemoa (July 04, 2012, 11:28 PM)

But look at the bottom:
"Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

This page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License. "

So it's simultaneously copyrighted and THEN licensed as Creative Commons!?

3623

General Software Discussion / Re: Mozilla to "stop innovation" on Thunderbird

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 07, 2012, 04:34 AM »

From another angle, FOSS stuff is "education". No Child Left Behind and all that. People can think of new things because they have the building blocks left over from the FOSS crowd. But yes, this new lockdown mentality is worrying. Viewed from the education angle, it's like a sick version of Wheel of Fortune. "Yes, let's do education, all the consonants are free! You have to buy the vowels."

3624

Living Room / Re: Reader's Corner - The Library of Utopia

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 06, 2012, 01:44 PM »

What I really wish would happen is if a cultural shift made "the new hotness" to be Creative Commons licensing, then all this copyright stuff would be like wearing bell bottom pants (and not as a retro joke).

-TaoPhoenix (July 06, 2012, 11:52 AM)

But I like bell bottoms, they fit much better over my engineer boots.

Besides, now is a bad time to blink on the IoE front. We need to keep pushing for a scorched earth solution that completely evaporates the **AA crowd.

-Stoic Joker (July 06, 2012, 01:18 PM)

(P.s. What is IoE?)

Unfortunately there really isn't a scorched earth solution, because we can't stop that huge list of revolving **AA gang that went into this administration. (Trivia Question - what is Al Gore up to lately? Do we have any indication he would have gone either into the War on Terror or Copyright Mania? Is THIS the true cost we paid when we didn't get him in 2000?)

I was serious about the Creative Commons thing - get the "Cool Kids" to suddenly change vectors and if it snowballs properly it COULD really throw a wrench in things. It's possible in our social media age - it feels to me like the SOPA situation - get just the right players and a few big corporate guns and suddenly it could explode.

I don't know a lot about Mitt Romney but I can't imagine he'll be any great advocate of net freedom - that was supposed to be Obama, and I really didn't see this extent of **aa pandering coming back during the campaign.

Someone with a deep pocket just has to decide that they stand to gain if they go the other way, and then slowly the small events will begin to matter until there's some kind of watershed that people will later point to.

3625

Living Room / Re: Reader's Corner - The Library of Utopia

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on July 06, 2012, 11:52 AM »

All that futzing about with the document will most assuredly have an adverse effect on the the user experience/device performance. We get a laggy reading experience and they get to shove a flashlight up our asses.

There is no good use for this technology.

-Stoic Joker (July 06, 2012, 11:32 AM)

Of course it will.

Hoping I get the phrasing right, DRM "auto-removal" tech is an important part of the discussion because it seems to be a big part of why it's called the First *Sale* doctrine, and not just people selling their own bootlegs. So yes it's an "important" use, just not any fun for the user vs. the pirate copy etc.

What I really wish would happen is if a cultural shift made "the new hotness" to be Creative Commons licensing, then all this copyright stuff would be like wearing bell bottom pants (and not as a retro joke).

But we're just barely beginning to get a little sense going on IP issues. Looping a bit broadly, Google-Oracle ended up with the correct outcome, Judge Posner threw out Apple's case against Motorola, the UK judge said that the slide to unlock gesture isn't infringing, and we beat ACTA. So back on topic, any useful solution to ebooks will only emerge in a climate of sanity. And however much I like playing "Infinity of Evil" with Renegade, it looks like we're at least back to "Slightly less infinitely evil".